What does it mean to "in reality have a choice between the two" though? — flannel jesus

I always use the avalanche examples. A rock rolling down a mountain side in an avalanche is approaching a tree. It has choices. It might roll to the left of the tree. It might smack right into the tree and stop. And it might roll to the right of the tree. But it doesn't, in reality, have a choice. All of the physical events are going to make it do one particular thing, and they're is no way it can do anything else. If we are watching it, we have no possibility of calculating all of the interactions that are taking place in order to know which way it's going to go before it gets there. We will be surprised when we see what finally happens.

When you have a choice of vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream, do you really have a choice? Or are all of the interactions between brain structures, particles, electrochemical signals, and whatever else, which we have no possibility of calculating,determining which choice you will make as surely as all the physical interactions on the mountain determine which way the rock will roll?

does that answer your question? — flannel jesus

Not exactly.

My concern in just answering directly is that I'm not confident I understand what you mean. If you played ball with the rewind test, I would perhaps have been able to figure out what you mean, but without that I feel like I'm just guessing at what you mean. — flannel jesus

gives a good example. I'll let others take over for now.

I'm agnostic about determinism. I lean slightly towards "our universe is deterministic, but in a way that's indistinguishable from indeterminism from the inside"

And I've tried to make clear that my position on free will is compatibilist in that it doesn't require determinism or indeterminism.

patterners example was about determinism. If you're just asking about determinism, I think you know my answer. If you don't, can you reword your question to just explicitly be about determinism or indeterminism?

I'm agnostic about determinism. — flannel jesus

How could you be compatibilist and at the same time agnostic about determinism?

you still haven't figured out what compatible means

5 points for the first person who can explain why "x is compatible with y" is not synonymous with "x requires y"

SEP says:
"Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism."

if you are a compatibilist, what two (or more) things do you find to be compatible, if determinism is not one of them?

that's right, it's determinism and free will. Those are the two compatible things.

I do. Compatibilism simply means that free will and determinism are compatible concepts. There is nothing to discuss if you are not sure whether determinism is true or not.

patterners example was about determinism. — flannel jesus

May I be corrected if wrong, but it was about whether one really has a choice in what one chooses. Again, if one does, then liberarain free will holds, irrespective of how it's metaphysically accounted for. If one doesn't, then back to everything being causally inevitable (or else everything being causally inevitable save for when it's sprinkled with a bit or randomness).

But I really am running short on time at the current moment.

then don't discuss it

my idea of free will is not incompatible with the possibility that the universe is fully deterministic and they everything is causally inevitable. I do not believe I've wavered on that for a moment at any time in this conversation.

What!? I am not a compatibilist. You are and yet you deny determinism!

I don't know what you're confused about. I never said you're a compatibilist. Pull yourself together man.

my idea of free will is not incompatible with the possibility that the universe is fully deterministic and they everything is causally inevitable. I do not believe I've wavered on that for a moment at any time in this conversation. — flannel jesus

I don't think you've wavered. The problem is that we do not understand what you're saying. As though you are saying, "My idea of circles is not incompatible with the possibility that they are squares." If you are trying to explain how the obvious problem with that is resolved, we are all unable to understand your explanation.

However, I think you explained it in your responses to me on page 1:

I guess part of it is, it's not freedom from, it's freedom to. At any given moment, you have the freedom to do whatever range of things, and which one you actually do isn't just random nonsense, the one you do is determined by your desires and wants and, in general, the decision making machine that you are at that point.

There's no need to be free from causality for that.

And in some moments, you're not free to do a lot of things. If you're currently leg-disabled, you're not free to run, but you're free to do other things. — flannel jesus

Freedom to, not freedom from. I think our ideas of free will are very different. Which is fine. We just can't discuss it the way we are. Kind of like asking which you prefer, chocolate ice cream or The Beatles. It's different conversations.

I don't know what you're confused about. I never said you're a compatibilist. Pull yourself together man. — flannel jesus

I am not confused. Don't you see that you are having a problem in your position? Being a compatibilist means that one agrees with both free will and determinism and think they are compatable.

It's different conversations. — Patterner

Yeah free will conversations are mostly like that it seems. One of the primary factors that creates the conditions for talking past each other is disagreement on the determined / random dichotomy. People who believe that's a valid dichotomy having conversations with people who don't usually results in talking in circles. Most people don't even realise that's a major point of difference between their intuitions about these ideas.

I'm going to break it down for you. Right or wrong, this is my reasoning:

1. A causally closed system either evolves towards the future deterministically, or it is in some part random. So that's the difference between determinism and indeterminism - indeterminism has some randomness.

2. Thus any time someone expresses an idea that's supposedly "incompatible with determinism", that's the same thing as saying "this idea requires randomness"

3. When libertarians say free will is incompatible with determinism, I hear "free will requires randomness"

4. I do not believe any coherent concept of free will requires randomness (and that's independent of whether or not I think randomness actually exists), and that's for one simple reason: if something is random, it's uncontrolled. If random stuff is happening in your brain or in your mind or in your agency, you don't control that any more than you control a fully determined brain / mind / agency (and it could be argued that the randomness gives you explicitly less control)

5. Therefore I believe that the libertarian concept of free will is incorrect (and again, that's independent of whether or not I think randomness actually exists). At this point I can either reframe free will to be more coherent according to my understand, or reject it altogether

6. I DID reject it altogether for many years. Perhaps you think that's a more coherent position, and perhaps it is.

7. Some years ago, something flipped, I don't recall what or why, but I came to accept the idea of a compatibilist emergent decision making process. Such a process doesn't rely on randomness (again, regardless of whether randomness actually exists). Through much abstract contemplation, most of which I can't put into words, that ended up with me thinking that some flavour of compatibilism is the right way to think about free will.

Do you think the rational principles of logic and cognition would be the same in a reality that had different underlying natural laws?

The a priori modes by which one cognizes depends on, as the name suggests, how their cognition is pre-structured and not the natural laws which govern those pre-structures: they relate to each other, but aren’t the same.

If, in principle, reason were to manifest in a being which had a wholly different physical constitution, then it’s modes of cognition would be the same as it relates to reasoning even if the natural laws governing (and the natural organs or functions ontologically grounding) that reasoning is wholly different than our own.

Now, what are the kinds of being which have reason but do not have human brains? I don’t know, exactly because we’ve never met one.

I abstain from conversations having free will as the topic, insofar as the very notion of “free will”, as far as I’m concerned, has already confused the issue.

How does it confused the issue?

…is only the case under very restricted conditions, re: pure practical reasoning, in which the subject himself is necessary and sufficient causality for all that which is governed by those principles, sometimes even to the utter subordination of natural instincts

Can’t we subordinate our natural instincts all the time? How is this “very restricted”? Most people don’t have, e.g., brain tumors.

I'm going to break it down for you. Right or wrong, this is my reasoning: — flannel jesus

Ok mate, let's discuss things to see what is right and wrong in your reasoning. :wink:

1. A causally closed system either evolves towards the future deterministically, or it is in some part random. So that's the difference between determinism and indeterminism - indeterminism has some randomness. — flannel jesus

You are a compatibilist, so let's just accept that the physical is only deterministic.

2. Thus any time someone expresses an idea that's supposedly "incompatible with determinism", that's the same thing as saying "this idea requires randomness" — flannel jesus

If by the idea you mean free will, then there are other ways to address that without including randomness in a deterministic system. One way to address free will is to consider the mind as the entity that decides.

3. When libertarians say free will is incompatible with determinism, I hear "free will requires randomness" — flannel jesus

This I have to explain in more detail. When you freely decide in a situation you don't toss a coin. You just decide and proceed with the option you want. So there is an element of wanting in your decision you cannot deny. I have to say that your decision from the third perspective seems random but from the first perspective, it is not since as I mentioned you do what you want. As I mentioned, if we include the mind in the equation then we have a deterministic part of the system, the so-called body, and we also have the mind that makes decisions when we are faced with options. As I said the decision from the third perspective seems random so you have a part of the person that is deterministic, the body, and a part that seems to work randomly when the person faces options, the other part being the mind. If you exclude the mind then you have a system that sometimes is deterministic and sometimes is random, which is contrary.

4. I do not believe any coherent concept of free will requires randomness (and that's independent of whether or not I think randomness actually exists), and that's for one simple reason: if something is random, it's uncontrolled. If random stuff is happening in your brain or in your mind or in your agency, you don't control that any more than you control a fully determined brain / mind / agency (and it could be argued that the randomness gives you explicitly less control) — flannel jesus

I discussed it in good depth in the previous comment.

5. Therefore I believe that the libertarian concept of free will is incorrect (and again, that's independent of whether or not I think randomness actually exists). At this point I can either reframe free will to be more coherent according to my understand, or reject it altogether — flannel jesus

Free will is real and you can have a coherent picture when you accept the mind otherwise you fall into the trap that a system must be deterministic and random.

6. I DID reject it altogether for many years. Perhaps you think that's a more coherent position, and perhaps it is. — flannel jesus

Let me know what you think so far.

7. Some years ago, something flipped, I don't recall what or why, but I came to accept the idea of a compatibilist emergent decision making process. Such a process doesn't rely on randomness (again, regardless of whether randomness actually exists). Through much abstract contemplation, most of which I can't put into words, that ended up with me thinking that some flavour of compatibilism is the right way to think about free will. — flannel jesus

That is all right to change your mind. It occurred to me many times and it still happens to me.

we're doomed to talk past each other endlessly as long as we disagree on the determinism/randomness dichotomy.

we're doomed to talk past each other endlessly as long as we disagree on the determinism/randomness dichotomy. — flannel jesus

Which part of my discussion do you disagree with?

You are a compatibilist, so let's just accept that the physical is only deterministic. — MoK

This part

by the idea you mean free will, then there are other ways to address that without including randomness in a deterministic system. One way to address free will is to consider the mind as the entity that decides. — MoK

This part

I don't feel like going through everything. Most of it.

But I'm trying to simplify the conservation, because I realise that we'll never have any mutual understanding without starting here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/977039

This part — flannel jesus

So you have to endorse that the physical is deterministic and random! That is a contrary position though.

This part

I don't feel like going through everything. Most of it. — flannel jesus

If you don't accept the mind then I am afraid to say that you have to deal with a contrary view you have.

But I'm trying to simplify the conservation, because I realise that we'll never have any mutual understanding without starting here: — flannel jesus

I am trying to simplify the conversation as well. You cannot have randomness and determinism within a monistic view since it is incoherent. If you accept the dualistic view then all problems are resolved.

So you have to endorse that the physical is deterministic and random! That is a contrary position though. — MoK

What I notice is that, repeatedly and imo inexplicably, you keep on talking about "physical" this and "physical" that in reply to my posts, but I don't say anything about things being "physical". I don't know why you're doing that. I don't know why you're trying to force "physical" into the conversation.

I never said anything is deterministic and random. You're just saying silly stuff now.

What I notice is that, repeatedly and imo inexplicably, you keep on talking about "physical" this and "physical" that in reply to my posts, but I don't say anything about things being "physical". — flannel jesus

By physical I simply mean the stuff that exists, your body, my body, etc. I have to use that to explain my view about reality. Aren't you a physical? If not what you are?

I don't know why you're doing that. I don't know why you're trying to force "physical" into the conversation. — flannel jesus

To differentiate the physical from the mind. I am a dualist so I have to do that.

I never said anything is deterministic and random. You're just saying silly stuff now. — flannel jesus

You said it in all your posts. For example, "A causally closed system either evolves towards the future deterministically, or it is in some part random."

you said physical means stuff that exists.

But then you said you differentiate physical from the mind.

So the mind doesn't exist?

I never said anything is deterministic and random. You're just saying silly stuff now.
— flannel jesus
You said it in all your posts. For example, "A causally closed system either evolves towards the future deterministically, or it is in some part random." — MoK

Deterministic and random
Is different from
Deterministic or random

"And" and "or" are two very extremely different words